The InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), the world's largest hotel chain with presence in about 100 countries, is set to operate nine new properties in the UAE in addition to the 11 already under its portfolio.

Tom Conophy, IHG Chief Information Officer, who was in Abu Dhabi for a short business trip, outlines, during an interview with Emirates Business, the growth in the region and new properties in the pipeline in the UAE and Middle East and North Africa.

How many properties do you manage in the UAE and Middle East, and how many are in the pipeline?

In the Middle East and Africa, we have 79 properties and 19,476 rooms, with a further 41 hotels and 10,819 rooms in the pipeline. In the UAE, the number of our properties is 11 with 3,268 rooms. We also have nine new hotels with 2,550 rooms and suites in the pipeline in the UAE. We will also build two hotels on Yas Island and one at Al Raha Beach developed by Aldar by 2011. They include 430-room Crowne Plaza and 165-suite Staybridge Suites on Yas Island and 300-room-and-suite InterContinental at Al Raha Beach. The new InterContinental Hotel, which is under construction, will open in 2011.

The Crowne Plaza and Staybridge Suites on Yas Island will open in 2009. The Staybridge brand is one that needs special attention. It is an extended-stay hotel for people coming here on long business visits such as consultants and others.

These are people who might be on assignments for one week, two weeks or more. The units in the stay-bridge hotel will have a functioning kitchen, a living room, a bedroom and a downstairs community area. It is an interesting concept and is well-received in the United State by business travellers.

What about the global portfolio?

We are the world's largest hotel company. We have nearly 600,000 rooms in our system today and we are approaching 6,000 hotels with seven brands. We are always looking to create new brand experience. Our current brands are InterContinental, Crown Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge, Candle Wood Suites and now we have a boutique hotel called Indigo. Our growth has been phenomenal, our pipeline as we call it, which means number of properties in the future, has been at a record level. Our pipeline is actually bigger than most of our competitors. We are opening roughly a hotel a day and in some cases two hotels a day. Last month alone we opened 45 hotels in the US.

We have more than 100 millions guests a year who stay in Holiday Inn hotels alone.

Can you explain the transformation of technology in the hotel industry?

IHG itself has gone through a little bit of transformation in the past three to four years with its business reshaped. We have been uplifting culture, focusing on brands and we have made big investments in consumer insights to understand the needs of travellers.

My agenda is to transform technology to be a key part in our brand experience, which means from booking experience to how a customer looks for information, collects data and checks-in.

We have been looking at entertainment, technology transformation and we have been looking at how to simplify the daily life of a business traveller. We are looking at better self-service technologies, providing mechanisms in rooms so you can connect your laptop and a variety of devices to the TV screen. We have invented something called sweet-point HD (high density). It is a pretty small hub, about seven by four inches, where you can plug different devices such as iPhone, iPod, MP3, laptops, cameras, game devices and watch it on the TV screen and listen on high quality sound system. No more fishing out cables around the room to plug in a device. We are looking at some of the properties here in the UAE to test and introduce these energy-efficient technologies. We have already done some testing in the US and other Asian countries. Our goal is to make these technologies available in IHG-managed properties across the globe.

What is the company's annual investment in technology and green initiatives?

In many cases, we, as a company, make investments in technology. And in many cases, it is others' money. We are recommending to the owners what they should be doing in terms of technology and green initiatives and those numbers are in 10s, 20s and 50s of millions of dollars across the globe.

On average our hotels spend about $150 million (Dh550.5m) a year on technology. That is only on maintenance and in addition to buying new things. We as a company make a significant investment in technology.

PROFILE: Tom Conophy, Chief Information Officer, InterContinential Hotel Group (IHG)

Tom Conophy is Chief Information Officer for InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG), the world's largest hotel company by number of rooms. A member of the Global Executive Committee, which runs the business, Conophy drives the technology agenda for IHG. He has overall responsibility for development and application of technology across all properties and corporate offices across the world and manages a global staff of more than 650.

With more than 27 years experience in technology, Conophy has directly witnessed the evolution of corporate computing from the days of procedural languages to the current web services environments that drive service oriented architectures.

Prior to joining IHG, he was the Chief Technology Officer handling technology at Starwood Hotels and Resorts. He was also at Sabre Inc as Senior Vice-President and Chief Architect. His airline and travel industry experience includes senior roles at United Airlines, Covia and Galileo International.